Children Being Tried as Adults Essay Example for Free

Children Being Tried as Adults Essay Some juveniles think that because they are minors, they can’t be severely punished just like adults. Using this thinking, many minors commit crimes thinking of little to no consequences at all. With this thinking, the â€Å"double standard† comes into place. Female juveniles think because of their gender, they can really get away with crimes. For the average american, the term juvenile delinquent is likely to conjure up the image of a teen-age male. The one-sided image is fed by media stories that all but ignore the existence of young offenders who are female. Most of the professional literature on juvenile delinquency is similarly slanted. Should minors who commit crimes be prosecuted as adults? That is indeed a topic you have to really think about twice. All crimes committed by juveniles should and must be treated in the same regard as adults. These kids go to juvenile court and get shortened sentences because of their age, thats not right. They commit big boy crimes, they have to do big boy time. When you think of the word â€Å"Juvenile† what’s the first thing you think about? The first thing that comes to my mind is crime simply because when i hear the word juvenile, its usually followed by delinquent. Until the early 19th century in the United States, children as young as 7 years old could be tried in criminal court and, if found guilty, sentenced to prison or even to death. Children under the age of 7 were thought to be unable to commit criminal acts and were therefore exempt from punishment. Reformers believed that treating children and adolescents as adult criminals was unnecessarily harsh and resulted in their corruption. A 1991 study by Virginias Department of Youth and Family Services, entitled Young Women in the Juvenile System, concluded that girls serve more time in training schools than their male counterparts, and for less serious offenses. The same pattern prevails in most other jurisdictions. (Anderson) Between 1994 and 2010, violent crime arrest rates decreased for all age groups, but more for juveniles than for adults. More specifically, the rates dropped an average of 54 percent for teenagers 15 to 17, compared to 38 percent for those between 18 and 39. And while arrest rates for violent crimes were higher in 2010 than in 1980 for all ages over 24, the rates for juveniles ages 15 to 17 were down from 1980. (Brown) Not everyone agrees that tougher crime laws for juveniles are fair or will cut down on youth crime. Many opponents of penalizing kids as adults believe that young criminals, unlike adult offenders, are still developing personal values and character. Juveniles, they say, can be more easily reformed, or rehabilitated, to turn their lives around and lead productive lives. For example, in a documentary i recently watched, all of the adults had been to jail and had a bad childhood but had changed their lives for the best. Many people have shown their disagreement with the statement above in many ways creating controversy. â€Å"Lock ‘Em Up† says one civilian/pedestrian in a street interview . â€Å"Let ‘Em off, they’re just babies† says another civilian. These two statements/opinions stirred up lots of controversy and debates on live television. In one argument a tv reporter said that It doesnt mean adolescents cant make rational decisions or appreciate the difference between right and wrong. But it does mean that, particularly when confronted with stressful or emotional circumstances, they are more likely to act impulsively, on instinct, without fully understanding or considering the consequences of their actions. Some controversy comes in with the parents thinking that their children don’t deserve to be tried as adults in their situation. For example, Paul Henry Gingerich, a 14 year old murder suspect is believed to be the youngest person in Indiana ever sentenced to prison as an adult. He was still 12 years old when he arrived here at the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility, the states maximum security prison for children. His mother could not do much due to the severity of the situation. Over 200,000 children are charged as adults every year says a researcher at Temple University. At the age of 16, Cameron Williams lives a life far removed from the world of other teenagers. Williams, who celebrated his sixteenth birthday in jail, faces up to 110 years behind bars for second-degree attempted murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony. In November, Williams shot at a police officer in Omaha, Nebraska as he was being chased after being pulled over in a car with two other men. Hes also charged with robbery and assault in another county. Even though he is a minor. Many people are affected/involved in these juvenile cases. In many cases, the juveniles themselves are the ones who are greatly affected because they are the ones who have messed up their future. The parents are also majorly affected by children being charged as adults because they still look at their children as innocent and as babies. In a recent california case, a 15 year old boy was sentenced to 20 years on a murder charged in a maximum security facility and was beaten to death. This made the state and even parts of the nation rethink this whole â€Å"age doesn’t matter thing† when it comes to juvenile sentencing. To decrease juvenile crimes there are several prevention programs. There is a program called D.A.R.E which stands for Drug, Abuse, Resistance, Education. The program is for kids as old as 18 and as young as 11. There are also programs like after school matters which teaches children the importance of staying in school and staying on the right path, and finally P A.C.E. is Programming for Young Women in the Juvenile Justice System, which also helps to rehabilitate juveniles after they are released from jail. (Anderson, George M.) Another possible solution could be for parents to teach their children right from wrong early in their lives and for older children, spend more time with them and show them that you care about them/love them, and most of all be there for them throughout their lives. Statistics show that children who grow up in a single-parent household are nine times more likely to go to prison, eight times more likely to commit violent crimes, and ten times more likely to get hooked on drugs than in a two-parent home. After some long research I concluded that teens today dont fear the law because they dont think they will get caught. And if they do, they know they have a good chance of getting off because they are tried as teens and not adults. We have to get tougher on crime. There should be a law that everyone over eleven years old will be tried as adults. That way more teens would be discouraged from committing crimes. They would know that murder would get them a very long sentence instead of sta ying in juvenile hall until they are eighteen. If we want to cut down on teen crime, we have to have tougher laws.

Penelopes Recognition of Odysseus as a Beggar Essay -- World Literatu

In Homer's epic The Odyssey, Odysseus returns to the island of Ithaka disguised as a beggar. He reveals his real identity to his son, Telemakhos, as well as a few others who he would need to help kill the suitors. However, Odysseus does not reveal himself to his wife, Penelope. She recognizes the beggar as her long lost husband and chooses not to unveil his true identity. Penelope does this because she realized that her husband would be in danger, in his current surroundings, if she was to reveal who he really was. Therefore she acts as if she does not know the beggar is Odysseus. However, it is portrayed subtly in the book that she does indeed know that the beggar is her husband. The very first piece of evidence Homer provides that Odysseus would be recognized by his family, is when the old dog recognizes who he was. The dog had been around since Odysseus had set sail on his epic journey. This makes the dog extremely old, and yet it still is able to recognize Odysseus' voice. The fact that the dog recognizes him in disguise so easily foreshadows Penelope's recognition of Odysseus as a beggar. Upon hearing of the travels of the beggar, Penelope is very interested to question him as to whether he has ever crossed paths with her husband Odysseus. The story that Odysseus tells her is for the most part untrue. However, he does give specific details as to what clothes he had worn, so that Penelope would believe that the story was truthful. The beggar then goes on to tell her that Odysseus is coming back to Ithaka in the very near future. It is at this point that Penelope first thought that the beggar could actually be her husband Odysseus, as she was overcome with emotions, and began to cry. From this point on ... ...at if he was not revealing himself to her that there was a good reason for it. Since she knew this, she went along with his act and did not give him away. On numerous occasions she makes comments that would lead one to think that she doesn't know the identity of the beggar, but it is merely the fact that she is highly intelligent and is able to hide what she knows very well. Through all of these examples, it is obvious that Penelope recognized Odysseus to some extent in the beginning, and throughout his time posing as a beggar she became more convinced of his identity. She hides this knowledge only to protect herself and her husband. Their interactions, though subtle to the naked eye, upon closer examination reveal that she did in fact recognize her husband as the beggar. Works Cited Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin, 1996.

Online Behaviors And Impression Management Essay

Introduction With the rapid development of technology, the Internet has become an effective mechanism for social networking. People can not deny the fact that a successful social networking is more possible to lead a successful life. A personal impression serves as an important role in establishing new networks and managing old ones. It was proved that people have more opportunities presenting themselves in the computer-coordinated communication settings than face-to-face environments. Therefore, regardless of generations, the ways how people interact with one another have been greatly changed by online social sites. The purpose of this study is to understand how people utilize online social sites to manage their personal impression and how they behave on social media; also, people utilize social media in order to gratify their social needs such as their friendship maintenance. The thesis of this paper is that social media influences personal behaviors as well as their impression management and i t also has positive impacts on people friendships performance. Personal Behavior on Social Media Individual behaviors may be restrained because of their awareness that their behaviors might possibly be seen by other people, and the fact that people tempt to look more appealing in any social occasions is obvious (Jeong, 2011). Since social media is served as a platform which is opened to public, people tend to pay more attention to how they appear and behave online. An experiment from Denton (2012) indicates that participants within heterogeneous networks such as Facebook have more desire to shift their impressions to others. A heterogeneous network is a network which is established for people without same interests, religions or common interests; in other words, people are able to speak or act freely on those websites. This experiment explains further that people manage or even shift their image based on others views and attitudes. According to Cummings (2012), the setting of profiles provides an opportunity for ones’ social life; people put effort into presenting a better image which aims at influencing others within the network. Jeong (2012) also declares that the process in which individuals attempt to control their impression with others is called â€Å"impression management†. Impression management can be used interchangeably with the term â€Å"self-presentation†, and its goal is to elevate people’s public image by performing behaviors based on how others evaluate them. Jeong also states that impression management usually occurs together with social desirability. Social desirability is defined as an individual’s tendency to describe themselves and behave in a manner in which they believe they will be viewed favorably in a situation. Moreover, Jeong also points out three main characteristics of self-presentation in online media platforms. They are asynchronous, malleable and selective. Asynchronous means that people can edit and update self-presentational cues deliberately over time. Malleable means people can simply manipulate those cues. Denton (2012) explains further by stating that people behave differently in different situations or interact with different people with whom they have specific relationships. For example, a lazy and incompetent employee may spend his evening as a passionate and assiduous worker volunteer or he behaves as a hard-working worker only under supervision; in this case, employers might misunderstand that he is truly a diligent worker. Thirdly, selective means people can improve their impression by choosing specific cues. Jeong explains this term by giving an example that individuals are more likely to donate or show their supports for charity campaigns as long as they realize that their participation would be noticeable to other people. Besides, there are some companies tend to elevate their images by sponsoring nonprofit organizations. To conclude, in general, people tend to behave favorably and try to create a positive impression to others on social media. Impression Management on Social Media Social media has been a new and easy platform for people managing their impression. Sameer (2007) states that document preparation programs make it relatively easy to manipulate the appearance of profiles; also, programmability helps people keep track of contents to the audience, and browser application provide an easy way to distribute the original or modified profiles. Therefore, Krisanic (2008) concludes from her research that impression management has been commonly carried out by those who involved in social networking activities. Jeong (2011) also states that online media platforms are expected to provide people with a greater opportunity for impression management, and because of its â€Å"public display† which enables participants to articulate and make their social networks more manifest; furthermore, Ellison (2008) declares that this kind of â€Å"public display of connection† serves as important signal that helps people navigate their networked social world. Cummings (2012) supports his idea. He points out that social network sites provide people a channel to present themselves digitally, and also gives them another way to provide details about themselves and establish or maintain their relationships in their own social network. Also, profile owners are not the only ones who are able to provide information on their own pages. Most sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn allow those who are involved in the connection to create additional information, and the use of wall posts and the recommendation are the examples (Cummings, 2012). All in all, the main characteristics of social network sites include the capability to make connection between people and share personal information; on top of that, it offers an easy way for people to manage their personal impressions. Friendships Performance on Social Media The articulation of friendship connections is another facet of impression management; it might possibly be viewed from others as an identity marker to profile owners (boyd & Ellison, 2008). Although boyd and Ellison argue that online audiences’ comments may dominate user behaviors, Vallor (2012) thinks that those interactions are part of the reciprocity which serves a prime function maintaining friendships. Reciprocity is an original biological stimulus that operates as the core of human sociology and is the mutual characteristic of different types of friendships (Vallor, 2012). Take Facebook as an example, reciprocity emerge with diverse forms; it begins with the friend requests and accepting invitations correspondingly, responding to friends’ status by pressing â€Å"like† button, sharing photos and videos online, comments on friends’ status, and â€Å"tag† friends on pictures or posts. Therefore, a study from Vallor (2012) shows that instead of d iminishing people’s interactions in their real lives, online social sites actually extend chances for such interaction. Vallor (2012) also declares that social media can support friendships. Many social network sites allow additional information, and which encourage people to list hobbies, post photos, and interact with other individuals within the network (Cummings, 2012). Furthermore, social network sites help individuals to manage contacts beyond traditional software like outlook, and they also help incorporate visual information such as pictures of contacts (Cummings, 2012); hence, the online social media offers a precious function of recombining efficiently with friends in the past (Vallor, 2012). To conclude, it is true that these sites help participants perceiving more sense of social value and connection; also, social network sites help reinforce participant’s desire to maintain their friendships (Vallor, 2012). Conclusion As online social networking sites as a new media technology comes out in our society, individuals have more opportunity than ever before to present themselves in public by using them. These sites allow users to make self-presentation by creating their own profile pictures, personal information, photos, videos, and their activities. Impression management is related to social networking sites use because individuals tend to develop different self-presentation depending on the audiences online. From those studies we were discussed, people tend to behave favorable to their audiences. However, the authenticity of profile information comes into concern since everything that shows on people’s profiles may dominate their images to others; whether this fact leads to negative problem of social networking sites may still need to be further investigated and researched. From another aspect, we can conclude that social networking sites have a positive impact on friendship performance. Although some studies argue that the online social networking sites may damage the traditional meaning of friendship, it serves as a valuable tool maintaining the friendship in people real lives. All in all, social network sites if manage properly; they can of course offer very concrete benefits to people social networking lives. References boyd, D. & Ellison, N. (2008). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. (pp. 219-220). Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(2008) 210-230. Cummings, J. (2012). Virtual First Impression Matter: The effect of social networking sites on Impression formation in virtual teams. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses 2012 pg. n/a Ellison, A. S. W. (2012). Impression Formation in a Social Network Context. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses 2012 pg. n/a Jeong, H. J. (2011). The Effectiveness of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Campaigns on Consumer Responses to Brand in Social Media: Impression Management Perspectives. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses 2011 pg. n/a Krisanic, K. (2008). Motivation and Impression Management: Predictors of social networking site use and users behaviors. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses 2008 pg. n/a Sameer, B. (2008). First Impression formation in electronic profiles. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses 2008 pg. n/a Vallor, S. (2011). Fl ourishing on Facebook: virtue friendship & new social media. Springer Science and Business Media B.V. 2011

A Wasteful Fashion in The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Ten years of life used to pay back a debt that was worth ten thousand dollars. Was it worth it? Guy de Maupassant was a popular French writer who is known as one of the fathers of modern short stories. Many of Maupassant’s stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870’s. Maupassant ended up writing about three hundred short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. In his short story, ‘The Necklace’, the main character, Mathilde Loisel, feels as if she should have been born rich but instead was born into a life of poverty. One day her husband, knowing Mathilde longed for this rich life, presented her with an opportunity to attend a rich party. After initially refusing, Mathilde finally agrees to go and goes out to buy a nice dress and borrow a beautiful diamond necklace to wear at the party and fit in with the rich crowd. When the party had ended, Mathilde was unable to find the necklace. Instead of admitting the loss of the necklace to her friend who loaned it to her, she and her husband took out a loan to a replacement. They then spent ten long years working double, only to find out in the end that the original necklace was a fake. Guy de Maupassant develops his theme that people should be happy with who they are and what they have in his short story ‘The Necklace’ through the use of irony, characterization, and symbolism. Guy de Maupassant uses irony, a key literary element in his short story, ‘The Necklace’ by giving an example of a